Fanfiction: Origin - Part Three

BREAKDOWN

Utterly broken-hearted, Faith watched with a sort of indifferent horror as her hopes and dreams were crucified, then slowly dismembered and tossed away as if they meant nothing at all. She hadn’t asked for much, but even that small request had been too great for her mom. Jesse continued to stay away from the apartment, only reinforcing Faith’s belief that she had somehow fallen from grace, but through no visible mistake on her part; she had done everything right, she had been the perfect daughter…the neglect was beginning to wear dangerously thin on Faith’s patience.

With Kelly still unavailable, no doubt busy doing things with her parents, Faith began to fall back into the monotonous routine of being essentially locked away in a space that seemed to be getting smaller and smaller every single day, a suffocating, crushing feeling that stifled her desire to behave as she had in the past. If her mother couldn’t invest the time and effort to make her daughter’s life interesting, then Faith would take matters into her own hands. In the days between her birthday and Christmas, she ventured outside more and more, eager to relieve herself of the burden that existed inside the increasingly cramped apartment. Outside, she could almost forget the heartache that seemed to follow her wherever she allowed herself to go, a shadow of disappointment that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She could feel it when she closed her eyes, the haunting presence of doubt that persistently told her that her entire life had been a waste. When had she ever done anything for her own benefit? Everything she had been, everything she was…it was all based on expectations that were not her own. Jesse had molded Faith into a perfect student, into a young girl with an eye for detail and success, but what about the things that Faith wanted? She had played her part quietly and obediently, striving to achieve the impossible task of making her Jesse into a better, more attentive mother. Faith had invested years of struggle and success, but it had all added up to nothing.

Maybe it was time for a change.

In those dead days between the 14th and 25th of December, Faith, now ten years old, spent more time away from the apartment than she ever had before. The vampire, previously so close to the forefront of her thoughts, was subconsciously pushed back and locked away within an unreachable corner of her mind. The cross necklace still accompanied everywhere she went, but she no longer regarded it as a weapon, merely as a piece of jewelry that sparkled in the fading winter sunlight. Moreover, the vampire did not make another appearance, at least as far as Faith could tell. She paid little attention to anything outside of her own mind, however.

By the time Christmas was almost upon her, Faith had changed dramatically. Having been cut off from human contact, with no one to speak to or play with, she had become extremely introverted, expending little to no effort towards anything that did not immediately interest her. She had seen Jesse only a handful of times in almost two weeks; Kelly phoned a single time; Lindsay Matthews was nowhere to be found. Tired of fighting, Faith gave up. She didn’t ask for a Christmas present. If you didn’t ask for anything, you couldn’t really be disappointed. Her small hands trembled constantly, so full of energy and discontentment, but she had no outlet. No outlet, that is, until Christmas Eve.

Jesse, perhaps feeling guilty, or perhaps with nowhere to go, stayed home on that night under the pretense of spending time with her ten-year-old daughter. On several occasions, she tried to open some sort of conversation, but Faith’s answers were clipped and rarely contained more than a few words. Not accustomed to getting such a cold response, Jesse gradually became a bit aggravated.

“What’s the matter with you, Faith?” Jesse asked loudly, getting to the point. They were eating dinner at the kitchen table, and Faith had not taken her eyes off her plate for at least seven full minutes. The TV was silent, and the question floated in the air for a few seconds with no response. Jesse half-slammed the table with her right fist. “Don’t ignore me.”

Faith finally made eye contact with her mother, but still did not offer an answer. She merely stared blankly, uncaringly, without any hint of emotion. Then she yawned, put a tiny smile on her face, cleaned her place at the table, and went into her room without even a single word. Jesse watched the door close and struggled to contain her anger. Without the influence of alcohol, she wasn’t yet at the point where she could physically harm Faith, but she could feel a smoldering sense of resentment towards her daughter for what had just taken place. Fuming, she almost broke her plate by literally throwing it into the sink, where it ricocheted around until eventually settling uneasily at the bottom.

Inside her room, Faith stood silently at the window, hands held behind her. She had flicked her light off, preferring to stand in total darkness, letting the cold weight of soundlessness rest on her tiny shoulders. A weak orange glow from some of the streetlamps below was all that illuminated the room, but Faith liked it that way. The world slowly passed by outside, carrying time inevitably forward, an unstoppable march towards oblivion that somehow left Faith behind. She could not move forward. She simply existed as she was, without thinking of the future, distancing herself from the past in an attempt to make herself dead inside. Feeling nothing was better than feeling everything; it spared your feelings, saved your heart from hurting at every single disappointment.

Breath fogging up a small portion of the window, Faith knew she had just done something she couldn’t take back. She had purposely insulted Jesse, ignoring her when asked a question. No doubt some sort of punishment would be doled out later, but Faith couldn’t bring herself to care. What could be dealt to her that she hadn’t already experienced? She had nothing that Jesse could take, either physically or emotionally; she had been slapped across the face, called names, been thrown to the ground and beaten; she had spent days alone, left to care for herself; she was a daughter that Jesse had never wanted and had no idea how to take care of.

She may have stood at the window for hours, or only for a few minutes, but she was jarred back to reality by a pounding at the front door. In the dead silence of her room, she could easily hear most of what was going on in the rest of the apartment. She heard Jesse walking, heard the door being opened…then she heard the voice of the one person she despised most in the entire world: Chris. What was he doing here? Rechecking her memory, Faith thought for sure that Chris wasn’t supposed to have leave from the base until around New Year’s Eve, which was still about a week away. Giving up her station at the window, she slowly went over towards her door and listened carefully for some verbal clue as to why the drunken bastard had come to visit.

“I couldn’t stand being on the base until New Year’s,” he was saying, obviously having moved into the living room. Faith heard the front door close. “I managed to convince my superiors to let me trade my leave dates.”

“You won’t get in trouble?” Jesse asked, not sounding very concerned.

“Nah, it’s all five by five. So should we get drunk, or what?”

There was a slight pause. “I’m not sure…Faith is acting really weird tonight. Earlier, she completely ignored me and went straight into her room.”

“Screw her,” Chris immediately replied, with a little too much vehemence for Faith’s taste. “Don’t let her ruin our night, Jesse. I didn’t go through all the trouble of having my leave changed so we could stay sober.”

After a few moments of tense silence, Jesse finally said, “All right. Let’s go out, though. I don’t really feel like drinking here tonight, especially with Faith acting up.”

“Maybe she just needs some discipline,” Chris responded, and Faith could just imagine the half-crazed look in his eyes as he said it. She heard footsteps making their way towards her door, but she didn’t budge, no longer caring enough to scamper away.